Water's Nice
by Sally Mn
Summary: He was still avoiding the fountain.


**Water's Nice...**

The water rippled and sparkled in the sunshine, its tiny, pale rainbows almost glimpsed through the spray. It was beautiful...

It terrified him.

He managed to avoid _the_ fountain - hell, all and _any_ water features these days, just about anywhere where the light and spray and sound of falling water made his guts turn to ice. But this one, he had managed not to go near. For _weeks._

For not long enough.

He knew it was irrational, even absurd to try and avoid looking at the sun on water... it _was_ beautiful, and it would make the icy memories of soaking water and absolute terror rush back every time.

So he had always found another way around here, however untimely, any way that didn't pass a pool, a fountain, a lake, hell some days even a sprinkler system In particular, he had not come near _this_ one, the pretty but commonplace one which would always scream 'death' to him, like a nightmare or a horror movie... a bad one, sure, but all the worse for being set in cool sunshine, manicured lawns and utterly, placidly normal campus grounds, and all the more a nightmare because of it.

He shouldn't have agreed to meet his partner here, but when it was suggested - what _was_ the guy thinking, or _not_ thinking? - baulking would have meant explaining why the north campus was now frightening, would have meant talking about the fountain, the water and the drowning, and he couldn't bring himself to do that.

The cool dusky light was turning colder to his eyes, the scene becoming more unsettling. His mind painted it with the splashing, the cold, the hoarse, terror-thinned yells, the scent of fluoride and death, a silence where a heartbeat should be, and that dark shape in the water...

Broken by a small white one.

Jim blinked.

A small white paper boat dipped a little, pushed by the waves towards him. Resolutely nonthreatening, determinedly unhorrifying, and ridiculously real, it banished both memories and mind's eye as it bobbed along. A small boy's giggles banished them further, and he turned his head to look at the kid, all dark curls and big blue eyes, hanging over the edge and splashing with little arms as a woman - Mom? yeah, Mom - held on to him for dear life.

For the life of him, he wanted to get up, get over there, get them to move away from the spray and the ripples and the glittering light on the water - but couldn't. He gritted his teeth, and stared doggedly at the tiny paper boat. It was simple. It was ridiculous. It was...

"Cute."

Sandburg's blessedly normal voice from behind made him start a little, and flush rather more. Blair grinned as he dropped on the grass beside his partner, shading his eyes with one hand.

"I used to make them too, you know, out of my mom's political broadsheets, all bright hippie colours and trippy printing. Wherever there was a lake, or a pool in the park, or any water at all - hell man, one back-to-the-earth commune it was the old bathtub that the animals drank in - I'd make my little ships and play armada." He glanced at Jim. "You ever do that?"

"You've met my dad, Chief," he managed to speak dryly, "I had the real thing, a fleet of the best money could buy."

"Poor you, man." It was genuine, neither ironic or sarcastic, and Jim found himself agreeing. "Making them is part of the fun when you're seven... getting soaked is too," Blair went on, with another grin as he watched the kid's happy flailing.

The grin faltered as he turned to look at his friend's face. "You okay with this, man?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Jim was still determinedly watching the boat, not the kid, and not Sandburg. "I'm not the one who..."

"Yes you are. Really. Me, I don't remember much, and pretty well none of - this," waving an hand around, "and I know I should, I know not everyone gets a near-death experience without the near bit. Man, the papers I could get out of it -"

"Jesus, Sandburg!" He felt sick at the flippant words.

"Well, I could. The fountain, the dying thing, whole day - Jim, it doesn't worry me 'cause I don't remember anything but the wolf and the jaguar. The good stuff."

"Lucky you." He meant it.

"Yeah. I know. Connor and Rafe, they haven't set foot on campus since it happened, and Brown admitted he can't go to a city park unless he _knows _there won't be water. You're doing better than them."

"I have to. You -"

"I'm here, and I'm staying here." Blair stared at the fountain, his face calm, even serene. "This place, this trip, this life."

"Then I have to as well."

There was a silence, broken only by the light splash of water and the boy's cleansing laughter.

"Jim," Blair touched his sleeve, "when I told you in the hospital, remember? - that the water's nice, I meant it."

"And I said -"

"I know, man."

"I'm still not ready for that trip, Chief," he whispered. "May never be."

"I know." The little boat was drifting back towards the boy and his mother, who leaned over to scoop it up and dropped it, sagging now and dripping wet, in the little hands outstretched for it.

"Promise you, Jim," Blair said quietly, "I'll show you how to make paper boats before we do - ones that stay afloat, okay?"

Jim watched, breathing a little easier as the child squashed a now sodden lump on paper mash to his chest and they turned to leave.

"Cute kid," he said inconsequentially. "But... did you think he look like someone we know?"

Blair looked at them, frowning a little, then at Jim, "Uhhh... no?"

Jim shrugged. "Just a thought," he said, and stared out at the water, still glittering weakly in the fading sunshine. It was beautiful...

And it still terrified him.

**- the end -**


End file.
